is a Japanese physician-scientist and immunologist. He won the 2018

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, accord ...

and is best known for his identification of programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1). He is also known for his molecular identification of

cytokines Cytokines are a broad and loose category of small proteins (~5–25 kDa) important in cell signaling. Cytokines are peptides and cannot cross the lipid bilayer of cells to enter the cytoplasm. Cytokines have been shown to be involved in autocrin ...

: IL-4 and

IL-5 IL 5 or IL-5 may refer to: * Interleukin 5 * Illinois's 5th congressional district * Illinois Route 5 Illinois Route 5 (IL 5) is a four-lane road in Rock Island County, Illinois, United States, that runs from U.S. Route 67 (US 67) in ...

, as well as the discovery of

activation-induced cytidine deaminase Activation-induced cytidine deaminase, also known as AICDA, AID and single-stranded DNA cytosine deaminase, is a 24 kDa enzyme which in humans is encoded by the ''AICDA'' gene. It creates mutations in DNA by deamination of cytosine base, which t ...

(AID) that is essential for

class switch recombination Immunoglobulin class switching, also known as isotype switching, isotypic commutation or class-switch recombination (CSR), is a biological mechanism that changes a B cell's production of immunoglobulin from one type to another, such as from the ...

and

somatic hypermutation Somatic hypermutation (or SHM) is a cellular mechanism by which the immune system adapts to the new foreign elements that confront it (e.g. microbes), as seen during class switching. A major component of the process of affinity maturation, SHM dive ...

. He was elected as a foreign associate of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

of the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

(2001), as a member of German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina (2003), and also as a member of the Japan Academy (2005). In 2018, he was awarded the

along with James P. Allison. He and Allison together had won the 2014 Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science for the same achievement.

Life and career

Honjo was born in Kyoto in 1942. He completed his

M.D. Doctor of Medicine (abbreviated M.D., from the Latin ''Medicinae Doctor'') is a medical degree, the meaning of which varies between different jurisdictions. In the United States, and some other countries, the M.D. denotes a professional degree. T ...

degree in 1966 from the Faculty of Medicine,

Kyoto University , mottoeng = Freedom of academic culture , established = , type = National university, Public (National) , endowment = ¥ 316 billion (2.4 1000000000 (number), billion USD) , faculty = 3,480 (Teaching Staff) , administrative_staff ...

, where in 1975 he received his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

degree in Medical Chemistry under the supervision of

Yasutomi Nishizuka was a prominent Japanese biochemist and made important contributions to the understanding of molecular mechanism of signal transduction across the cell membrane. In 1977, he discovered protein kinase C, which plays significant roles in a varie ...

and Osamu Hayaishi." Honjo was a visiting fellow at the Department of Embryology, Carnegie Institution of Washington, from 1971 to 1973. He then moved to the U.S.

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...

(NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, where he studied the genetic basis for the immune response at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development as a fellow between 1973 and 1977, followed by many years as an NIH Fogarty Scholar in Residence starting in 1992. During part of this time, Honjo also was an assistant professor at the

Faculty of Medicine, University of Tokyo The Graduate School of Medicine and Faculty of Medicine, University of Tokyo are a single, merged department at the University of Tokyo. The Faculty of Medicine (東京大学医学部) is one of the 10 constituent faculties, and the Graduate Sch ...

, between 1974 and 1979; a professor in the Department of Genetics, Osaka University School of Medicine, between 1979 and 1984; and professor in the Department of Medical Chemistry, Kyoto University Faculty of Medicine, from 1984 to 2005. Since 2005 Honjo has been a professor in Department of Immunology and Genomic Medicine, Kyoto University Faculty of Medicine. He was the President of Shizuoka Prefecture Public University Corporation from 2012 to 2017. He is a member of the Japanese Society for Immunology and served as its president between 1999 and 2000. Honjo is also an honorary member of American Association of Immunologists. In 2017 he became Deputy Director-General and Distinguished Professor of Kyoto University Institute for Advanced Study (KUIAS).

COVID-19 pandemic

During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, a false claim that Honjo believed that the novel coronavirus had been "manufactured" by a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan was widely disseminated on the internet in many languages. The BBC Reality Check team reported that, "In a statement published on the website of Kyoto University, he said he was 'greatly saddened' that his name had been used to spread 'false accusations and misinformation'.

Contribution

Honjo has established the basic conceptual framework of

. He presented a model explaining antibody gene rearrangement in class switch and, between 1980 and 1982, verified its validity by elucidating its

DNA structure Nucleic acid structure refers to the structure of nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA. Chemically speaking, DNA and RNA are very similar. Nucleic acid structure is often divided into four different levels: primary, secondary, tertiary, and quat ...

. He succeeded in cDNA clonings of IL-4 and

cytokines involved in class switching and

IL-2 The Ilyushin Il-2 (Russian language, Russian: Илью́шин Ил-2) is a Ground attack aircraft, ground-attack plane that was produced by the Soviet Union in large numbers during the World War II, Second World War. The word ''shturmovík'' (C ...

receptor alpha chain in 1986, and went on further to discover

AID In international relations, aid (also known as international aid, overseas aid, foreign aid, economic aid or foreign assistance) is – from the perspective of governments – a voluntary transfer of resources from one country to another. Ai ...

in 2000, demonstrating its importance in class switch recombination and

. In 1992, Honjo first identified PD-1 as an inducible gene on activated T-lymphocytes, and this discovery significantly contributed to the establishment of

cancer immunotherapy Cancer immunotherapy (sometimes called immuno-oncology) is the stimulation of the immune system to treat cancer, improving on the immune system's natural ability to fight the disease. It is an application of the fundamental research of cancer im ...

principle by PD-1 blockade.

Awards

Tasuku Honjo Susumu Nakanishi Ikuta Takagi Shinzo Abe Shunichi Iwasaki and Goichi Oda 20131103

Honjo has received several awards and honors in his life. In 2016, he won the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences for "Discovery of the Mechanism Responsible for the Functional Diversification of Antibodies, Immunoregulatory Molecules and Clinical Applications of PD-1". In 2018, he shared the

with American immunologist James P. Allison. They previously also shared the Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science in 2014. The other major awards and honors received by Honjo are: * 1981 – Noguchi Hideyo-Memorial Award for Medicine * 1981 –

Asahi Prize The , established in 1929, is an award presented by the Japanese newspaper ''Asahi Shimbun'' and Asahi Shimbun Foundation to honor individuals and groups that have made outstanding accomplishments in the fields of arts and academics and have greatl ...

* 1984 – Kihara Prize, Genetics Society of Japan * 1984 – Osaka Science Prize * 1985 – Erwin von Baelz Prize * 1988 – Takeda Medical Prize * 1992 – Behring-Kitasato Award * 1993 – Uehara Prize * 1996 – Imperial Prize of the Japan Academy * 2000 –

Person of Cultural Merit is an official Japanese recognition and honor which is awarded annually to select people who have made outstanding cultural contributions. This distinction is intended to play a role as a part of a system of support measures for the promotion of ...

* 2001 – Foreign Associate of

U.S. National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Natio ...

. * 2012 –

Robert Koch Prize The Robert Koch Medal and Award are two prizes awarded annually by the German for excellence in the biomedical sciences. These awards grew out of early attempts by German physician Robert Koch to generate funding to support his research into the ...

* 2013 – Order of Culture * 2014 –

William B. Coley Award The William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic and Tumor Immunology is presented annually by the Cancer Research Institute, to scientists who have made outstanding achievements in the fields of basic and tumor immunology and whose w ...

* 2015 – Richard V. Smalley, MD Memorial Award * 2016 – Kyoto Prize * 2016 – Keio Medical Science Prize * 2016 – Fudan-Zhongzhi Science Award * 2016 –

Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates Clarivate Citation Laureates formerly Thomson Reuters Citation Laureates is a list of candidates considered likely to win the Nobel Prize in their respective field. The candidates are so named based on the citation impact of their published resear ...

* 2017 – Warren Alpert Foundation Prize * 2018 –

References

External links

*
Tasuku Honjo Lab, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine

Profile: Tasuku Honjo, Kyoto University Institute for Advanced Study
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Honjo, Tasuku 1942 births Living people Japanese biochemists Japanese immunologists University of Tokyo faculty Osaka University faculty Kyoto University faculty Kyoto University alumni Laureates of the Imperial Prize Kyoto laureates in Basic Sciences Recipients of the Order of Culture Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Members of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina Members of the Japan Academy Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine Japanese Nobel laureates